Advances in Convection in Porous Media: The R. A. Wooding Legacy

Abstract

This special issue of Transport in Porous Media is a tribute to the late Dr. Robin A. Wooding, an applied mathematician, who was a pioneer in the field of convection in porous media. A biographical and bibliographical note follows in this issue. Invitations to contribute to this issue were sent to people, who had cited Wooding’s work in the course of themselves making substantial contributions in the field of convection in porous media, and who had thereby demonstrated sound application of mathematics to the modeling of physical phenomena. Consequently, this SI focuses on natural and mixed (rather than forced) convection, but the scope is extended to include gravity driven flow of the type studied by Wooding. The forthcoming contributions span a spectrum from highly mathematical papers, to those discussing very earthy applications. Some of the articles are primarily reviews of the stateof-the-art, while others contain highly novel material. The reader will notice some biases in the content. For example, the applications are mainly to the earth sciences. For most of his life, Robin Wooding lived in either New Zealand or Australia, and so it is appropriate that there is a strong ANZAC representation in the set of authors. He collaborated with a number of European and American colleagues, and that too is reflected in the authorship. I am grateful for the assistance that I have received from Professor Craig Simmons, who would havebeen a co-editor of this special issue, hadhis other duties permitted. I have received an exceptionally high amount of cooperation from the authors and referees of the articles, and I take this as a reflection of their respect for RobinWooding as a scientist and as a person.